There
by Frenzied Warrior
Summary: Dean wakes up in pain, in the dark–alone. And there's no Sammy there to save him. There's no Sammy there to save. Some shameless hurt!Dean, set Season Two. T for Dean.


**More writimajigs. Finally.**

**I'm not exactly sure how this story really came to be. I watched the last episode of Season Seven to pump myself up for the premiere of Season Eight this week, and then all my Dean feels were suddenly spewed out onto paper. Screen. Whatever.**

**No matter the reason, I've another little hurt!Dean one-shot because I CAN. And a mention of hurt!Sam, like, somewhere in there...like, maybe a sentence... You know, that's progress for me. I'm getting there.**

**This takes place in Season Two, somewhere in that awesome mess of Winchester angst. Hope you enjoy, and leave a review, because reviews make my heart smile.**

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own Supernatural or the Winchesters. I just tend to hurt them from time to time, and force them to have brotherly moments. Who can blame me?**

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"S'mmy."

The slurred attempt of a word tumbles out of Dean's mouth before he is even aware, before he even opens his eyes. Because the very first thing he knows, even before he knows whether or not he's actually alive, he knows that his brother is not there. Nowhere near. Not even close.

And that doesn't fly.

"Mmpf," Dean groans, shifting painfully. His eyes remain closed, and his shoulder burns. Ow. That hurts. Really bad. Where's Sammy? Where is _he?_ Someone's gonna burn in hell. Damn it.

Guess he had to open his eyes. Shit.

With another moan of pain Dean forces his eyelids open. For a moment, he believes that he actually didn't open them at all, and then he thinks that he's blind; but no, it's just dark. Really dark. Super dark. Pitch-black.

And he can't move.

"S'mmy?" Dean mutters, trying to push himself up into a sitting position. His shoulder flares with a white-hot pain, breaking through the darkness, and he loses track for a few minutes. Or a few hours. Same difference. Eventually he forces his eyes open again, blinking a few times dazedly. He can't move his right arm, so he reaches with his shaky left hand and pinches his cheek, just to make sure he's there. He is. Somehow, that makes everything seem so much worse.

After a while Dean realizes that, wherever he is, it's small. Horribly small. So small places like this should be illegal. He's pretty sure they already are. Someone's gotta go to jail. Crap, that hurts like a mother. He can't move his unresponsive legs more than a few inches. He can't move his right arm or shoulder whatsoever, and isn't sure whether he wants to know what happened there. He knows now that the left side of his face is puffy and swollen, nearly closing his eye, and his ribs hurt like a bitch. He has crick in his neck and a knot in his back the size of freaking Canada. There's dried blood on his face, and fresh blood in his mouth. He spits it out, but instantly regrets it. It takes him a few dazed hours to realize he's lying in some sort of hole.

It only takes him a few minutes to know he wants out.

He doesn't know where Sam is; he can't even remember what freaking town they had been in, what he had been doing, what sort of fugly they had been hunting, how he had gotten in this fucking _hole_. He tries and tries but all he's rewarded with is his heartbeat pounding in his head and a few moments in Narnia for his trouble. He's pretty sure he has a fever, and he can't see shit. It's so damn quiet. He doesn't know how long it's been, and he doesn't know where Sam is.

If Sam's even alive.

He jolts awake without even realizing he fell asleep, glances up and _ah God that hurts_, but there's light. A little, tiny beam of light coming from a hole the size of an ant and it has to be a good twenty feet above him, but it shines a little bit of light down on him. The walls of his prison are stone, and he's lying in dirt. And mud. And water. And blood.

Lots of blood.

It can't be all his...can it? He doesn't feel like he lost _that_ much. No, it isn't. He just has to tell himself that.

When did he become such a piss-poor liar?

_Sammy, where are you?_

Dean manages to maneuver himself into a sort-of sitting position, more like slouching against the wall with his legs sprawled out in front of him. He painfully retracts the pointy rock that had been digging into his ass and throws it to the side, panting heavily.

Sam.

"Sammy." Dean grinds out, but his voice sounds like it could use a gallon of water, and he knows that he could use some Listerine. And a cheeseburger. And a shit ton of whiskey. Not necessarily in that order. The volume of his voice doesn't reach much above a rasp, so he tries again, pointing his head upwards, towards the little ant-light. He has to get out. He has to get out _now._ "Sam! _SAM!_"

Erupting into a fit of coughing, he hunches over, little lights twinkling at the edge of his vision. He pulls it together and shouts his brother's name, shouts and yells and _screams_ until he doesn't have a voice anymore and he knows that Sammy's not coming. Not yet, anyway.

Suddenly it's almost dark, the ant-light is disappearing, and Dean's hungry. He's hungry, and dirty, and he wants to know how long he's been down here. More than that, he wants to get _out._ Out, out, out.

"That's it," he grunts without really speaking at all. "Time to blow this shithole." And he forces himself up onto his swaying feet. He cradles his right arm for a minute before he grabs a rock with his left hand and heaves himself up, using his feet as stabilizers. He manages to get himself up a good five, six feet before he can't rely on only his left hand anymore, and reaches out for a protruding handhold with his right.

He's back on the ground, his ears are ringing, and then the ant-light is gone, replaced by the dark.

The next time the light is there, above him, Dean tries climbing again. And falls down. Again. He feels foggy; his shoulder is probably infected, with whatever happened to him having happened to him and making him feel shitty. So shitty. He sleeps a lot, and that angers him. He should be getting out of the damn hole, finding Sam, but every time he tries, he falls, and then he sleeps some more.

The third time the light comes Dean marks three little marks in the wall with the pointy ass rock, to stay alert. To make sure he doesn't do swan dive right off of the deep end.

It doesn't really work, but he does it anyway.

After the fourth mark, he's so thirsty that he's resorted to drinking water from the least-bloody-and-muddy-looking puddle he could find in the hole.

After the fifth mark, he's worn his voice out so much that when he wakes up, he can't speak.

After the seventh mark, he gets so claustrophobic that he starts screaming, pleading for someone to get him out, to get him the fuck out of this hellhole. No one comes. No one.

After the eighth mark, he catches himself talking to Sammy.

By the tenth, he starts chewing absently on a piece of blank paper he found in his pocket. There's a beetle or something climbing around on the rock next to his head. He eats it.

After the twelfth, he catches himself talking to Dad.

After the fourteenth, he forgets to mark the days anymore.

Seconds, minutes, days, weeks after, suddenly the ant light isn't much of an ant light anymore. It is arguably as big as a golden retriever. Like the one Dean and Sammy had found on the road one day when Sammy had been nine, and he wanted to keep it, since it had no home, no collar, and Sam had begged, Dean had begged, pleaded for that dog, but Dad had said no, and they drove away. They just drove away, and left the dog in the dark...

"Dean?"

Dean turns his head to the side, squeezing his eyes shut and willing the beats pounding in his head and sending sparks flying to go away, to just dull, to stop, not realizing that it is his own slowing heartbeat. He wants the light to go away, he doesn't want to see, he doesn't want to see the dog that Sam had wanted so much that he had named it, and cried for days after they left it on the side of the road, probably to die. To die. Sammy had named it; he had named it Cody...

_Please. God, _please_ Dean, can we keep him?_

"Oh my god. Dear god, Dean? Dean, can you hear me?"

_Loud and clear, Sammy. What are you doing? Dad's gonna get mad, kid..._

"Fuck. Oh, Jesus, fuck. I'm coming, Dean, just hold on, okay? Don't be dead, please don't be dead, Dean, shit."

_Language, Sammy. Gimme a dollar._

Something hits Dean's calf. He doesn't give a shit. But when noise erupts in his little hole, when there are footsteps and grunts and swears and stomps right next to him, he cares. It's hurting his head. Damn it, it _hurts. _He wants to go to sleep. Where is Sammy...Sammy needs him.

_Leave the damn dog, Sam._

There's something on his arm, on his face, his neck...no, not the neck, get _away._ Probing his jaw, and then there's a sigh of relief, but Dean's pretty sure it wasn't him. He hasn't felt relief since...well, it's been a while.

"God, Dean...she messed you up good. But it's okay. It's okay, Dean, the spirit's gone. I'm gonna get you out of here, and everything's gonna be fine. Okay? I promise. Look at me, Dean, open your eyes. Please, open your eyes. It's me. It's Sammy."

That's what kicks at Dean's slumbering brain. That's what sticks a fork into his electrical outlet. _Sammy._

"S'mmy?" His lips barely move, and he's pretty sure no sound came at all, but whoever's above him– yes, it must be Sammy, it has to be, has to be– notices, and leans down, brushes hair that Dean didn't realize had grown away from his face.

"Dean?" The word is said softly, but in his haze Dean knows, he just _knows_ that Sammy is there. Right next to him. And that everything is okay. Now. "Dean, can you open your eyes? Or...your right one, at least? C'mon, lemme see those green eyes you say the ladies love. Such a damn Casanova, you son of a bitch. Open your eyes, Dean."

He wants to, oh, he wants to open his eyes, but it's so hard. But this is Sammy. He can do it. He will do it. He pries open his eyelids, crust threatening to keep them stuck together, and takes in the blurry scene around him. Sammy's there. Just...there.

After all this time.

"Hey." Sam smiles, his dimples showing, but his eyes are so sad. Dean can't bring himself to do anything but stare at his brother. That's all he wants to do.

Hell, he may not be able to talk, but that doesn't mean he can't try. Dean opens his chapped lips open a centimeter, not breaking his gaze. Barely any noise squeaks out. "Hey."

Sam breaks out a laugh, ducks his head down, and when he brings it back up again, there are tears dripping from his eyes. "Let's get you out of here, Dean."

Sam goes to move, but Dean raises his shaky left hand and attempts to stop him. In reality his digits don't move more than half an inch upward, but Sam notices, and his mother hen setting is switched on full blast within zero point two seconds.

"Dean?" Sam's voice is soft, comforting, as if he's afraid that if he speaks too loudly, too harshly, then Dean will crumble and break right in front of him. "Dean, what is it?"

Dean gazes at Sam's face, his rugged face that really needs a good scrubbing. Dean doesn't want to see what his face looks like. Sam's beard is growing out, his eyes bloodshot and sleep deprived. Panicked. Relieved. Sad. Very sad.

Dean closes his eyes, because his eyelids are tired, but he croaks out words before Sam can pounce on him again. "S'm?" Dean creaks his eyes open again, just to make sure he isn't hallucinating again. That Sam is really there. "Issit you?"

Sam lets out a sound that sounds like a wheeze, a sob, and a laugh had a threesome and made an awkward baby. "Yeah, Dean." He whispers, and then laugh-sobs again. "Yeah, it's really me."

Sam ties something around Dean's waist, climbs up a rope that totally hadn't been there before through the golden retriever-sized hole and peeks his head back in. Dean cries out in pain when suddenly his ribs are on _fire_ and he's burning, he hurts so much, he's burning. God, oh, God... Sam is apologizing profusely but Dean doesn't care. He doesn't care he doesn't care he doesn't care–

He's on the ground. Sam is there.

He had forgotten that there's a sun.

"Okay, Dean." Sam rasps. He's panting. Dean's in his arms, his left shoulder slung over Sam's neck, Sam's hand on Dean's side, essentially dragging him along. He wants to walk, but that doesn't mean he can.

Goddamn it, he's so fucking _weak._

There. Holy shit, the Impala. Dean's never seen anything so beautiful.

Sam opens the backseat of the car, begins to help Dean inside. Dean rolls his head to look at his brother.

"Y' arm." He rasps, glancing at Sam's left arm, encased in a white plaster cast. Sam glances at it and scoffs.

"The spirit." He explains. "Introduced me to the trunk of a tree. Fractured my arm, knocked me out. I woke up, the spirit was gone. So were you."

The silence becomes tangible.

Sam closes the door and runs around to the driver's side. The Impala's on the road, roaring at a slightly-less-than-socially-acceptable rate toward the nearest hospital within seconds. Every few moments Sam glances back at his brother, relieved to find that Dean's staring at him, eyes open and more or less alert. Glazed over, totally checked out, flashing with pain, but open. He's burning with fever, bruised and bloody, severely dehydrated, half starved, and the stab wound in his shoulder is sure to leave him more than a little messed up for a little while. But he's back. He's _there._

Sixteen days.

"Don't worry, Dean." Sam speaks up, trying to shake the tears from his voice. "We'll be at the hospital soon."

Dean just stares, but then twitches his lips and turns his head to the side. "I wanna drive."

The laugh bubbles its way out of Sam's mouth before he can stop it, and just for a moment, it doesn't matter that his brother is lying half dead in the backseat of his own car, or that he had been left in that...that _hole_ for two weeks. It only matters that he's there, with Sam, and Sam's there, with Dean, that they're together. No one's missing; no one's a mystery. There's just a job to do.

And they can handle that.

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**The review button has been so neglected with my lack of writing. It needs a friend. That friend is you. If that wasn't evident.**


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